Michelle and I extend our warm thoughts and best wishes to all those celebrating Kwanzaa this holiday season. Today marks the first day of the week-long celebration of African-American history and culture through the seven principles of Kwanzaa: unity, self determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith.

To many, Kwanzaa serves as a time of reflection--taking lessons learned from our past and looking forward to a more promising tomorrow. It reminds us that though there is much to be thankful for we must recommit ourselves to building a country where all Americans have the opportunity to achieve their dreams.

As families across America light the Kinara today in the spirit of unity, our family extends our prayers and well wishes during this season. ####

President Obama has made a practice of marking and celebrating numerous religious holidays from diverse traditions around the world. Wednesday he hailed Kwanzaa, a seven-day African-American tradition begun in 1966 by Ronald Everett. (Scroll down for the full Obama Kwanzaa text.)

Everett adopted the name Maulana Karenga, began teaching African studies in California and said he founded the holiday to "give Blacks an alternative to the existing holiday and give Blacks an opportunity to celebrate themselves and their history, rather than simply imitate the practice of the dominant society."

Karenga was an active participant in the violent Black Power struggles of the 1960's and in 1971 was convicted of false imprisonment and felonious assault. He served four years in prison.

Obama's latest statement saluting Karenga's holiday included the following description of Kwanzaa: "It reminds us that though there is much to be thankful for we must recommit ourselves to building a country where all Americans have the opportunity to achieve their dreams."

Obama and his spokesmen describe the president's religion as "Christian." But he has committed numerous apparent mis-steps in that area. In 2008, it was revealed that Obama for 20 years had attended a Chicago church headed by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whose racist, anti-American, anti-Semitic sermons caught on videotape shocked many Americans.

Obama said he did not recall hearing such rants in the church where he was married and his daughters were baptized. In an ensuing speech on race, Obama said he could no more renounce Wright than his white grandmother whom Obama said he'd heard make racist remarks.

However, several weeks later in that heated Democratic primary competition with Sen. Hillary Clinton, Obama changed his mind and renounced Wright.

In his 2012 book "The Amateur," the best-selling author Edward Klein quotes Wright as saying that when Obama joined his church, the newcomer was ignorant of Christianity and required considerable tutoring. Wright also said a friend of Obama's had offered him a large sum of money to remain quiet during the remainder of that 2008 campaign.

During a presidential trip to Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation where Obama spent much of his childhood, the Democrat president misinformed a large crowd that the United States' national motto was "E Pluribus Unum," and not "In God We Trust."

In his Thanksgiving messages Obama has also strangely omitted mention of God, the usual addressee in American prayers of Thanksgiving. Although Obama has been actively involved in the secular Easter egg roll at the White House, he has also not issued traditional messages marking Easter, one of the top two annual holidays of Christians.

Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty Images

Obama has, however, officially noted many religious and historic occasions observed by members of other faiths, including the Muslim holidays of Ramadan and the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca:

Michelle and I extend our warm thoughts and best wishes to all those celebrating Kwanzaa this holiday season. Today marks the first day of the week-long celebration of African-American history and culture through the seven principles of Kwanzaa: unity, self determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith.

To many, Kwanzaa serves as a time of reflection--taking lessons learned from our past and looking forward to a more promising tomorrow. It reminds us that though there is much to be thankful for we must recommit ourselves to building a country where all Americans have the opportunity to achieve their dreams.

As families across America light the Kinara today in the spirit of unity, our family extends our prayers and well wishes during this season. ####

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